Morning light fell across the courtyard of my parents' house, plain and warm. I had come alone, without guards, without a car from the Alpha's garage. I wanted no one between me and the people who raised me.
My father, Beta Charles, stepped onto the front step first. His shoulders were straight the way they always were, like a habit he had trained into bone. My mother came after him, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel and trying not to look worried.
“Diana," she said, voice soft, as if the wrong tone might make me break. “You're early."
“I needed to see you." I walked into their arms and let myself breathe. The house smelled like soap, cinnamon, and paper—safe things. For a minute we only stood there, the three of us the way we used to be before titles turned simple words into performa
